1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to compilers for computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that facilitates lazy type tagging for compiled activations to facilitate garbage collection.
2. Related Art
The exponential growth of the Internet has in part been fueled by the development of computer languages, such as the JAVA™ programming language distributed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. The JAVA programming language allows an application to be compiled into a module containing platform-independent byte codes, which can be distributed across a network of many different computer systems. Any computer system possessing a corresponding platform-independent virtual machine, such as the JAVA virtual machine, is then able to execute the byte codes. In this way, a single form of the application can be easily distributed to and executed by a large number of different computing platforms.
When an application is received in platform-independent form, it can be interpreted directly through an interpreter, or alternatively, it can be compiled into machine code for the native architecture of the computing platform. Executing native code is typically significantly faster than interpreting platform-independent byte codes. However, native code occupies considerably more space than the corresponding byte codes. Some “mixed-mode” computer systems support both interpretation of byte codes and execution of compiled native code.
A platform-independent virtual machine periodically performs garbage collection operations to reclaim previously allocated memory space that is no longer being used. During a garbage collection operation, it is necessary to identify pointers within activation frames on the stack. Traditionally, this has been done by maintaining stack maps for each method that is currently executing, or by maintaining a tag for each value in each activation frame indicating whether the value is a reference type or a primitive type. While maintaining tags for each value facilitates simpler garbage collection, the overhead involved in maintaining tags for each value can reduce execution speed. This can be explained by the fact that many methods execute to completion without having to be examined by a garbage collection operation. Hence, the time involved in maintaining tags for these methods is largely wasted.
Furthermore, in “mixed-mode” systems, garbage collection operations typically work with two different types of activation frames, because activation frames for compiled methods are typically different in structure than activation frames for interpreted methods. Note that an activation frame for an interpreted version of a method is typically larger than a corresponding activation frame for a compiled version of the method. This is because the activation frame for the interpreted version typically includes additional data, such as type tags, which occupy more space. Hence, working with two different types of activation frames greatly complicates the garbage collection operation, as well as other operations that deal directly with activation frames.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that facilitates type tagging for compiled activations without the problems described above.